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March 20: God’s Pleasure

In Colossians 1:10, Paul is praying for the Colossians “that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him,”

As with any Scripture, there are always several things to note, but I’d like to just mention one. Notice God’s pleasure with us when we walk worthy. We tend to think of God’s displeasure with us more than His pleasure with us. But we misread Him when we see Him this way. Of course He requires things of us. Like an earthy father, He exhorts, comforts and charges. We are to take up our cross and follow Him obediently. But when we do this, He is pleased and satisfied with us.

A false view of our heavenly Father may be attached to our own earthly fathers. How many of us know for a fact that our fathers are pleased with us? Do we think of our fathers as judges, ministers of wrath, seldom pleased and always angry with us? If so, it is no wonder that we think of God the same way.

We know what it is like to be pleased with our own children, satisfied with their progress and efforts at obedience. That is what we must compare this to. We are happy with our kids when they obey us cheerfully, when they are trying hard to do what might not be easy for them, and you know how much it pleases them to see your pleasure. In the same way, we are blessed when God is pleased with us.

Some parents withhold their pleasure. When they see the kids’ obedience, they simply pile on more commands. It’s never enough. That is not how God treats us. He wants us to enjoy Him and enjoy His pleasure. In the same way, parents should demonstrate their pleasure with and to their children.

Remember God’s words spoken at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17). God the Father expressed His pleasure in His Son in a very public way. This is the tone we want to set in our own homes, with our own children: You are mine, and I am pleased with you.

My last conversation with my own earthly father (and neither of us knew it was going to be the last) was quite memorable. I had called him on Father’s Day, and I was expressing my love and appreciation for him when he butted in to tell me how happy he was with me. I thank God for an earthly father who expressed his pleasure with and to me. And that was only possible because of our heavenly Father, “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14) who takes pleasure in His children.